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en-usEngadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronicsCopyright 2018 AOL Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.https://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/05/double-dragon-with-diversity-in-beatdown-city/https://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/05/double-dragon-with-diversity-in-beatdown-city/https://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/05/double-dragon-with-diversity-in-beatdown-city/#comments

Game developer Shawn Allen grew up as a biracial black kid raised by a white mom in a mostly Latin neighborhood in Manhattan. Now, as an adult, most people assume he's black, Middle Eastern or Hispanic, while others squint and ask, "Where are you from?" Diana, his wife, is Puerto Rican, and their friend, Manny, is Sicilian and chief of his Taino tribe.

Together, they're aiming to bust down the barriers to video game diversity with a retro-styled brawler, Treachery in Beatdown City. It features RPG elements and a turn-based combat system, and it features a cast of minority characters. The star of Beatdown City is Lisa, a Puerto Rican woman designed by Diana to counteract the "spicy Latina" stereotype in popular media, Allen tells me.

"Lisa was made to be a strong character first, who can also be a positive Latin woman in games," he says. "She is, if not the only, one of the few leading Puerto Rican women in games."

Beatdown City isn't an activist game – it spawns from the team's love of brawlers, and they've worked to make it different (turn-based combat will do that) while still recalling classics such as Double Dragon and Streets of Rage. But if Allen and his friends are going to make a game with human characters, they're going to be as diverse as the developers themselves, Allen says:

"When Manny and I started making the game, we wanted to make iconic, memorable characters like brawlers of old did. But we infused them with backgrounds based on our culture, the culture around us and of people that we know. The more we thought about it, the details flowed very easily."
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diversityethnicitymacminoritiesminoritynu-challengerpcracetreachery-in-beatdown-cityWed, 05 Mar 2014 19:30:00 -050011|20843836https://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/10/evo-2013-indie-showcase-features-towerfall-aztez-spyparty-6-m/https://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/10/evo-2013-indie-showcase-features-towerfall-aztez-spyparty-6-m/https://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/10/evo-2013-indie-showcase-features-towerfall-aztez-spyparty-6-m/#comments

EVO, the annual fighting game convention and tournament, packs an underground punch this year with nine games in the Indie Showcase, bringing in four new titles and five returning champs. The four new games are Towerfall, Treachery in Beatdown City, Samurai Gunn and Super Space ____ (pronounced "Super Space Blank"), and the repeat offenders are SpyParty, BariBariBall, Nidhogg, Aztez and Super Comboman.

Towerfall caught our eye on the Ouya, Aztez has been creating buzz around conventions local and otherwise, and SpyParty has a special connection with EVO – its current No. 1 player first saw it at last year's convention. The EVO 2013 Indie Showcase is organized by Nathan Vella, President of Capy Games (Below, Sword and Sworcery), and the entire show runs from July 12 - 14 in Las Vegas.